This post is by Logan Wolfram, who also goes by @lifefordessert on twitter. She’s a mother of two boys, lives in South Carolina and heads up the popular blogging conference for women called Allume. This post was originally posted here on her blog.

I’ve often found myself wondering how I, just one gal from South Carolina, can make a difference in the globe.  I’d be willing to guess that you’ve asked yourself the same question too.  And sadly, I think somewhere along the way, I resolved that I wasn’t entirely sure that I could do anything myself, but I could at least support missionaries who were…or who seemed to be.  So for a long time, I think I just became part of the status quo…and therefore, probably part of a problem as well.  Do-gooder somewhere buried amidst feelings of some sort of hopelessness.

About 6 years ago, something began to really stir within both my husband and my heart.  We began to realize that somehow we were missing out on who God must really be.  We’d both grown up in typical Southern churches and had spent lives of mediocre christianity that floundered around through high school and college.  I guess for both of us, our individual faiths began to take more shape one we had each entered the world as young adults.  But still…by all intents and purposes, from the outside looking in, there didn’t appear to be anything special about any callings we had or lives we were living.  I was steeped somehow in mediocrity that for the most part beyond trying to invest in a few individuals around me, was pretty much not changing anyone’s life…least of all my own.

Then something happened.  We were in a group of people who all pretty much felt the same.  And we began to ask questions, and search the scriptures, and really figure out about the person of Jesus.  Suddenly, something snapped in us.  A light came on.  Walls began to blow off of the tidy box that I’d wrapped God in somewhere in my younger years, my life began to get pretty messy, but somehow even amidst the mess, I began to feel more alive….more interested in God, energized by time spent with him, and completely shocked and in awe of this person of God I’d somehow missed my entire life.  Suddenly, the Living God became just that…Living.

And as I’ve begun to get to know God in this fresh and intimate way over the past few years, he’s done something in my heart.  He’s set it ablaze to make a difference.  As I recognize who God says that I am, I suddenly realize the intense love and compassion that he has for others.  As I’ve begun to walk with the Living God, I find myself wanting to be a breather of life into others.

There are chances to do that EVERYWHERE.

And by all intents and purposes, I wouldn’t say that there has been any completely radical thing that I’ve begun to do just yet.  Just like everyone else, I’m trying to figure it out.  Trying to understand who God has made me to be, to walk boldly in that calling, and to love and serve others along the way.  To use any influence that I have to that degree as well, both online and in my actual life.

A couple of years ago I led a group study that dove headfirst into some ideas of hospitality.  I searched the Scriptures to learn more about it, and about the people who were characterized by it.  While every spiritual gifts test I’ve ever taken tells me that I’ve got it, the scriptures taught me something different about it…sometime real.  I realized that hospitality isn’t a gift given just to some, but it’s a requirement of all believers in Christ.  That it’s not just an outward expression of service, but rather an inward posture of the heart.  Hospitality is learning to open our hearts to others, to love others well, and to serve from that place of love.  Hospitality isn’t a thing to do, it’s a way to live.

When I was in Bangladesh with Food for the Hungry back in January, the Lord reminded me that serving isn’t a matter of doing, but of loving.  I guess some part of me went with the idea to serve people…to do things for them…to make their life better somehow.  But somewhere in there, the Lord told me to “just love.”  To be who He created me to be, and to love.  To meet people in their need and to fill it with love.  That serving people is loving them in their space of need.  And sometimes serving people is just loving them plain and simple.  There are no untouchables in the Kingdom of Heaven.

So I’ve been learning that if I want to matter in the world…I have to love people first.  I won’t ever make a hill of beans true difference if I just do without being rooted in loving others.  But there are things we can do too.  I can invest in my neighbors.  I can take a meal when my friend across the street has heart surgery.  I can love on my friend Melissa’s kids and remind them how much their mommy, who is in heaven now, loves them.  I can sponsor a child with Food for the Hungry and invest into her community, and ask others to do the same.  I can meet people in their need and stoop to pray for them in the middle of a grocery store parking lot.  I can invest into young marrieds to train them how to prepare a meal for their families. And I can spend my dollars in ways that give life to others.  I may not be radical yet, but I can tell you that I’m sure wanting to get there more.

I think that “the church” as a whole is failing our culture.  And growing up conservative in the South certainly didn’t condition me to be open-minded by some standards, but I think what I’m learning is that open-mindedness isn’t necessarily what I want to be…but open hearted is.  I want the love I’ve been shown by a good heavenly Father to spill out of me and soak others…not matter how similar or different our lives may be.  We have to love well…love ourselves and love those around us.

My heart is learning to love without boundaries.  My life is bending towards helping others learn to do the same.  And my travel plans for this year include a meeting of like-minded, and like-hearted people in September in Austin, TX for the Idea Camp.

“We will facilitate fresh, honest and transformative conversations with leading thinkers and practitioners on topics including how the church cares for the vulnerable, the other and self while unpacking how differences of gender, race, mental health, and age influence our approach.  Our desire is to live life as God’s loving expressions of grace and hope to our world through tangible acts of care for all of humanity.”

Yes…that.  And I can’t help but wonder, and be excited by how much we can begin to change the world by each being the one that we are called to be, and banding with others who are walking in their callings as well.  Strength in numbers, power in connecting, and a group moving together to bring change.  A sandstorm doesn’t make a difference if it’s only composed of 1 grain….but hundreds of grains, thousands of grains in motion together can change a landscape entirely.

Join us un September at The Idea Camp as we gather to encourage, inspire, and have conversations to put into motion more effective, and practical ways to not just live differently, but to love differently.

{Photos by Esther Havens taken on Logan’s trip to Bangladesh with FH, originally posted here.}

This post is by Chris Marlow, founder of Help One Now and fellow Idea Camper. Visit his website here and find out what he’s up to on twitter here.

Have you heard the news that the !deaCamp has been resurrected?

It is true;  I’m thoroughly excited and a little scared. Why? Well, these sorts of things tend to require a lot of work.

It all started a few months ago when Lindsey sent an email saying, “Hey, I think it’s time for another !deaCamp.”  After an email or two and a quick conference call with Mike, Lindsey and Charles Lee, we decided to move forward.

We quickly agreed that his !deacamp should be held in Austin. I mean, the !deacamp and Austin were made for one-another.

Why !deacamp?

Now, to be frank, the four of us do not need any extra work on our plates. And, you don’t need “just” another conference to attend, right?

But that is exactly why I’m thrilled to help co-lead the IdeaCamp. It’s so much more than a conference. It’s a community of sojourners, a tribe of people who gather every so often around a table and talk about issues that are meaningful to humanity.

That table is filled with practitioners, not just dreamers. These folks are already in the game trying to solve problems — big problems.

At this table, you get to hear conversations that might be typically off limits.  At this table, you can ask hard questions, you can disagree freely and not live in fear that you are now an “outsider” at the table.

!deacampers love the hard questions; we thrive off the theory that the crowd has tremendous wisdom — not just the speaker. And usually we sit down at the table to discuss one key issue – church, justice, sex, orphans, ideas, and now human care.

We pour out our souls, we talk with passion, we connect on a deep level and we usually leave with new friends, partners and possibilities.

No superstars, no green rooms, no high paid speakers, no dominant voices, no “one-size-fits-all” mentality — that is not how we roll.

It’s life giving.

And let me be really clear — the table is when we gather formally. However, we always stay connected, we’re always rooting for each other, we’re always trying to find a way to help one another in life, business and ministry.

Are You Coming?

This September, you will laugh, you’ll cry, you may get angry, you may be a little sad, and you will eat lots of tacos and hear some amazing music.

This is why I said yes. This is why we made room in our schedules. These are the conversations that bring life to all of us. They breathe deep meaning and add much needed fuel for the work that needs to be done.

Hope to see you in Austin this September. Register here

{This post originally appeared here on Chris’s site.}

{Photo Credit}

This post is by Mike Rusch, COO of Pure Charity and Idea Camp Guide. Mike has been one of the ones leading the charge this year with creating a space for Idea Camp this fall. You can find him on twitter here. 

“There is a crack, a crack in everything : that’s how the light gets in.” (from the Book of Common Prayer)

I’ve been on this journey for a while now, and it’s amazing to see how far one can go under their own strength.  Whether it be some random coincidence or just my stubborn inability to give up, I’ve found myself a small part of some really great stories.  

Stories of…

Victims of domestic violence finding a safe shelter to escape.

Homeless families reunited within a new place to call home.

Orphans being placed in forever families.

Children who are given a future through education.

Water wells that provide for thousands.

Jobs being created out of dirt and a handful of seeds.

Yes, I suppose my resume of doing good is looking pretty sharp these days,just as long as you don’t look too deep.

Because if you look past the surface, what you’ll find is how my stubborn inability to give up has actually become the noose that will eventually undo this image of a crusader that I’ve played for the world.

“My generation has been sold a lie in the form of ‘change the world or burn out trying’.” – Brian Hirschy

However, I know that the call of Jesus to press on in caring for the hurting of this world remains unchanged.

This journey that started once with leaps and bounds has become a series of slow, painful attempts to just put one foot in front of the other.

Why?  How?  When?

Could it simply be that working under my own strength has become the weight that is slowly pushing me to the ground?  

The harder I push against it.  The harder it pushes back against me.

The churchy answer is something along the lines of “let Jesus carry the load for you.”  While my heart doesn’t dismiss His claim that His burden is light, my mind naturally resists anything making it easier to avoid the fact that the path of Jesus is supposed to cost you something.  Maybe it’s supposed to cost you everything?

If the burden is light and the cost may be everything, maybe I need to admit that I just don’t know where the balance really is.

When I find myself literally bent beyond repair from trying to carry this balance beam across the wire, what am I supposed to do?

…maybe the only thing I can do.

Set it down.

With the simple willingness to admit I can’t carry it any longer, maybe I can find the strength to raise my head just enough to remember why I started this journey in the first place.

I still have so much to learn.  Maybe this September in Austin we can wrestle together and find some rest.

Maybe we can leap once again?

find photo here

This post is by Brandon Hatmaker, pastor of Austin New Church and  co-founder of Restore Communities. He is a missional strategist with Missio, and author of “Barefoot Church: Serving the Least in a Consumer Culture”. Brandon is married to author and speaker Jen Hatmaker and has five amazing kids:  Gavin (13), Sydney (11), Caleb (9), Ben (7) & Remy (5). You can find Brandon here on his website and on twitter here.

A few years ago I boarded a 737 with a small and diverse team of global leaders headed for Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. It was a mixed team of corporate CEO’s, COO’s, VP’s, a denominational leader, a mega-church pastor, and a missional church planter. I was the church planter. The leader of our crew was the founder and CEO of the Eden Reforestation Projects, Stephen Fitch, a veteran to Ethiopian Airlines who has invested his life into the hope of being good news to the people spread across a handful of third world countries.

Over the years the Eden Projects have planted tens of millions of trees and provided thousands of jobs for the indigenous people in areas devastated by de-forestation.  The resulting erosion and stripping of nutrients from the land has impacted more than just the wildlife and ability to farm. In a land where crops and livestock are the only currency, entire communities are being displaced as environmental refugees, with no place to go, no land to own, and no skills for creating income. In a land of extreme poverty, add to it environmental issues, and hope seems like an unlikely commodity.

Our plan was to fly in to Addis, load into a caravan to head down the rift valley towards the community of Awassa, and visit the nursery and planting sites for Eden on the Udu escarpment and eventually the Sodoma Highlands.

Since Jen and I had already started the long journey of adopting from Ethiopia, I put in my request, more than once, to visit some orphanages along the way. I knew Stephen’s hope for each of us was to see the projects firsthand, see how great the need really is, and gain a new appreciation for what they were accomplishing.

But here’s my confession: Although I had discovered a newly found appreciation for serving the least and seeking to be good news, at the time, I still didn’t quite get it. I knew that what Eden was doing was good, but I was struggling a bit seeing how trees could impact eternity. I was having a hard time connecting the dots. And I realized that out of spiritual self-preservation, my personal focus on the trip had been mentally hijacked from the Eden Projects to my adoption journey. It seemed more noble, more worthy, and more justifiable to my conservative upbringing and imagined critics.

I came to realize that I was subconsciously trying to rescue my reasoning for going. I had grown up knowing a church that did very little in the area of social justice. I can’t remember once being taught to engage need other than spiritual. In fact, although I grew up in church, I can’t remember ever serving the poor until I took a group of youth on a mission trip to Mexico as a young youth pastor.

So when other pastors and friends asked me why I was going to Ethiopia… and the truth was to plant trees… I was a bit embarrassed. I was afraid I’d be labeled. I was afraid they’d think it would be a waste of time and money. I was selfishly having a hard time connecting the dots between planting trees to help these environmental refugees and the Gospel. Although I recognized that I truly had some church baggage about being socially active, my issue was a matter of ministry validation. My struggle was really about seeking the approval of man versus the approval of God.  The objections to social action were flooding my mind.

The problem was me. Not my church. Not my culture. It was me. 

So I paused for a moment to pray and ask God to connect the dots between planting trees and healing lives. I asked for confidence and clarity for how it was good news.

This prayer was bigger than just this trip. Doubt had seeped in, and I was in need of a reminder why we were called to serve the poor and to engage social need. As a pastor, I was asking God for an injection of confidence that compassion ministry and social action (the heartbeat of what became Austin New Church) was just as important to him as a healthy small group or women’s Bible study event.

I ended my prayer feeling a bit optimistic. Instantly I felt the confidence that throughout the trip God would give me clarity. But nothing could prepare me for what would happen next.

Within seconds of closing my prayer an Ethiopian man sitting in the row behind me asked me why we were flying to his home country. My mind flipped through the options for the most concise answer to a personally complicated question.

 “We’re planting trees.”

I don’t know why I landed on such a simple answer. Especially one that was exactly opposite to how I might have normally answered.

Following my answer an elderly woman sitting next to him asked in her native language what I said. When he told her… she began to wail. I don’t mean cry a bit. I mean wail. Like in biblical proportions. He began to explain what she was saying through her tears:  “She says that she has been praying for 38 years for God to forgive them for stripping their land and to please send someone to undo the destruction and plant trees.”

Before I could reply she put her hand on me and started praying – out loud – through her wailing and tears… for about 15 minutes.

We don’t understand need as the world understands need. We typically serve how and where we want based on our wants, not the wants of those being served. Our offering of hope is riddled with agenda.

In a moment I had gained a new appreciation for what it meant to offer hope through engaging need. And I was incredibly humbled. Embarrassed a little. Many people have come before me to help with this need. Reforestation in Africa was obviously not starting with me.  To this point, I had done nothing outside of some financial support to the organization through our church. But it made no difference to this woman. No way around it. Anyone planting trees in Ethiopia was good news to her.

I saw it even more on the ground. I saw a tree planted, jobs created, schools funded, and churches starting. And more than anything… communities renewed with the hope of the Gospel.

I’ve learned a lot since then. The biggest is that while planting a tree was certainly a necessary beginning, it was just a beginning.

We’ve experienced the same journey in serving the homeless. Just yesterday I was invited to lead a dedication service for a beautiful plot of land set aside to become a village for the chronically homeless of Austin. In the not too distant future, it will become home for hundreds of people who need more than a house… they need community. Something that began as a vision to simply feed our homeless brothers and sisters has become a holistic effort to offer true biblical community.

The same has happened on our journey of learning to care for the orphan. As an adoptive dad of two beautiful children from Ethiopia… I know that adoption will not solve the world’s orphan crisis. There is more… much more to be done.

Human Care is a journey we must travel together. One that can drain, frustrate, stump, and is as full of roadblocks as it is encouraging, fulfilling, and beautiful. Each effort typically starts with something simple… opens new doors… and exposes deeper opportunities.  There are so many stories out there. We need to learn from each other.

This is why I’m so excited about this year’s IDEA CAMP being held in Austin, Texas on September 20-21^st. Our theme is “Human Care”… and we need you to be a part of the conversation. Join us.

This post is by Sarah Markley, author and blogger at sarahmarkley.com. She’s and Idea Camper and she is organizing the blogging content for this year’s conversation. Find her on her website and on twitter.

When I told Mike Rusch last fall that I wanted to help with Idea Camp in any way that I could, I had no idea he’d wrangle me into curating the content for this blog and organizing a couple dozen busy writers around the world to offer their voice.

But I’m loving it.

I’ve had several people ask me recently about the whole idea of “human care.” What are we actually talking about and what do we intend to discuss this fall?

As the Church morphs and grows into deeper and deeper beauty, our ideas about how best to take care of people both inside and outside the church also change. The way “we did it” 20 years ago, or even 3 or 4 years ago may not be the best way to continue to “do it.”

And there are many laborers in the ministry that are tired. They’ve been caring for people for their whole adult lives and they are simply burned out.

As a church, if we want to continue to be a voice for vulnerable children, for women, for slaves, for the impoverished, for the ones without voices, and if we want to continue to labor hard for them, we must also continue to ask ourselves what our best practices are.

So some questions we’ve begun to ask are these:

What does God ask us to do to care for the whole person, including the physical, emotional, spiritual parts of humanity? Are we caring for people both “inside” and “outside” the church?

How have we done well (or poorly) regarding this?

What issues are we not addressing regarding vulnerable children, homelessness, women’s issues, poverty and what questions are not being asked or answered?

What has changed over the past decade and what do we need to do to change in response to a changing world culture?

How do we address “burn out” for people in human care roles? How can we better serve people who care for others?

Idea Camp is a conversation to discover the best practices of others, to brainstorm with leaders in their fields and to learn from each other about how we as the church can be a better responder to the issues that are at our front door. 

And that’s it.

God has asked us to care for widows and orphans and He has also asked us to feed and clothe those who have need. Many of us are doing it and doing it well. But can we do it better or differently? Are we tired? What are other needs that we aren’t addressing?

We know “Human Care” might seem broad, but we think the conversation is an important one.

We hope you’ll join us. We know you won’t be disappointed.

What questions do you have? What would you like to see talked about at Idea Camp this September?

If you haven’t registered, register here today.